Method and apparatus of modifying a device according to acquaintance information

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are examples of modifying a current state of a mobile station based on the location of the mobile station with respect to a nearby acquaintance. The method may include detecting a presence of a mobile station in a predefined domain area identified by an application, the predefined domain area being associated with at least one acquaintance, and performing a modification to a current state of the mobile station based on a level associated with the at least one acquaintance.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 13/793,340,entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OF MODIFYING A DEVICE ACCORDING TOACQUAINTANCE INFORMATION”, filed on Mar. 11, 2013, issued U.S. Pat. No.8,977,291, issued on Mar. 10, 2015, which is a continuation ofapplication Ser. No. 13/222,684, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OFMODIFYING A DEVICE ACCORDING TO ACQUAINTANCE INFORMATION”, filed on Aug.31, 2011, issued U.S. Pat. No. 8,472,976, issued on Jun. 25, 2013, whichin turn claims benefit of provisional application No. 61/379,066,entitled “MODIFYING A DEVICE ACCORDING TO INFORMATION ABOUT ANACQUAINTANCE”, filed on Sep. 1, 2010. This application is related tocommonly assigned application Ser. No. 12/913,848, entitled “METHOD ANDSYSTEM FOR GENERATING AN ELECTRONIC MEDIUM”, filed on Oct. 28, 2010 andapplication Ser. No. 12/913,852, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FORSEARCHING NETWORK RESOURCES TO LOCATE CONTENT”, filed on Oct. 28, 2010and application Ser. No. 12/913,854, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FORPRIORITIZING CONTENT COLLECTED AUTOMATICALLY”, filed on Oct. 28, 2010and application Ser. No. 12/913,856, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FORCOMMUNICATING WITH INTERNET RESOURCES TO IDENTIFY AND SUPPLY CONTENT FORWEBPAGE CONSTRUCTION”, filed on Oct. 28, 2010, issued U.S. Pat. No.8,909,683, issued on Dec. 9, 2014 the entire contents of which arehereby incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a method and apparatus of implementinglocation based modifications to an end user device, and moreparticularly to initiating changes to the mobile device that will bebrought to the attention of the user.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It is without argument that people want to connect and stay connectedwith the people they know, otherwise referred to as their socialnetwork. Worldwide social networking accounts are on the rise. One studyestimates that the current number of social networking accounts willrise from the current value of 2.2 billion to almost 3.7 billion by theyear 2014. This includes all of the major social networking accounts.

Even businesses are taking advantage of the social network trend aswell. Social networking sites are a way for small businesses toadvertise for free, or for a very low cost. Companies utilize socialnetworking to gain credibility, foster employee relationships, build aforum for communication with customers, and even boost sales.

Location based services (LBS) utilize GPS signals to track the locationof users of mobile devices. LBS is included in advanced mobile devicesoften referred to as smartphones. The growth of smartphones iswidespread, arguably attributed to the introduction of the iPhone® byApple in 2007. The smartphone market has entered a significant growthspurt. With the use of smartphones, users have a device at theirdisposal that is capable of tracking themselves, as well as people intheir social network. Users are able to obtain the latest informationfrom their favorite social networking sites from almost any location, aswell as input new data into their site via any of the known formats(e.g., video, pictures, and text).

However, there is still room for new technologies which provide alertingand other functions to the user in an intuitive way. Such notificationsystems or related alerting features may provide the user with real timeupdates regarding when there is an acquaintance nearby or there is anopportunity within reach to meet someone or to engage in an otherwiseopportune experience within the user's domain area.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An example embodiment may provide a method that includes detecting apresence of a mobile station in a predefined domain area identified byan application, the predefined domain area being associated with atleast one acquaintance. The method may also include performing amodification to a current state of the mobile station based on a levelassociated with the at least one acquaintance.

Another example embodiment of the present invention may include anapparatus that includes a memory configured to store acquaintance levelinformation. The apparatus may also include a processor configured todetect a presence of a mobile station in a predefined domain areaidentified by an application, the predefined domain area beingassociated with at least one acquaintance, and perform a modification toa current state of the mobile station based on a level associated withthe at least one acquaintance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication network according to exampleembodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example GUI of a user acquaintance applicationaccording to example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates another example GUI of a user acquaintanceapplication according to example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example table of application functions accordingto example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example flow diagram of a mobile devicemodification determination procedure according to example embodiments ofthe present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram according to example embodiments ofthe present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a network entity that may include memory, softwarecode and other computer processing hardware, and which may be configuredto perform operations according to example embodiments of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It will be readily understood that the components of the presentinvention, as generally described and illustrated in the figures herein,may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of differentconfigurations. Thus, the following detailed description of theembodiments of a method, apparatus, and system, as represented in theattached figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the invention asclaimed, but is merely representative of selected embodiments of theinvention.

The features, structures, or characteristics of the invention describedthroughout this specification may be combined in any suitable manner inone or more embodiments. For example, the usage of the phrases “exampleembodiments”, “some embodiments”, or other similar language, throughoutthis specification refers to the fact that a particular feature,structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodimentmay be included in at least one embodiment of the present invention.Thus, appearances of the phrases “example embodiments”, “in someembodiments”, “in other embodiments”, or other similar language,throughout this specification do not necessarily all refer to the samegroup of embodiments, and the described features, structures, orcharacteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or moreembodiments.

In addition, while the term “message” has been used in the descriptionof embodiments of the present invention, the invention may be applied tomany types of network data, such as packet, frame, datagram, etc. Forpurposes of this invention, the term “message” also includes packet,frame, datagram, and any equivalents thereof. Furthermore, while certaintypes of messages and signaling are depicted in exemplary embodiments ofthe invention, the invention is not limited to a certain type ofmessage, and the invention is not limited to a certain type ofsignaling.

Example embodiments provide enhanced functionality on a mobile devicethat is modified based on interactions with acquaintances included inthe user's social network. In addition, the modifications may be basedon those acquaintances who are within the user's immediate physicallocation or within a predefined geographical radius. The mobile devicemay be modified based on received signal to obtain the attention of theuser. Some of the modifications may include a temperature change of theentire device, emitting scents, playing music, video and other forms ofmedia among other modifications. For instance, a correspondingapplication may be enacted to gather data from the user's local andremote systems to further learn about the user's ever changingacquaintances. The data retrieved may be used to automatically adjustthe user's social network according to interactions with theacquaintances.

The mobile device may be altered according to the location ofacquaintances in the user's social network. Also the modifications tothe mobile device may occur only if the acquaintances are within theimmediate domain of the user. For example, groups of acquaintances (ortiers) are established with the application to aid in determining thelevel of the relationship between the acquaintance and the user. Thetypes of modifications to the mobile device may include altering thetemperature of the device, and emitting a scent from the device. othertypes of modifications are also possible.

In the user's first social network tier, for example, the user's familymay be setup as profiles that are closest to the user. The second tiermight be the user's closest friends. The third tier may be business andpersonal acquaintances, etc. When the user approaches a predetermineddistance of a person who is in the user's acquaintance list, the devicemakes the user aware of the acquaintance's presence. The acquaintance'slocation may also be tracked dynamically using LBS or may be fixedlocation, such as their house, place of work, etc. As a result, thedevice visually indicates the presence by flashing an icon on the user'stouch screen, playing an audio sound-clip to audibly notify the user, orany of the other normally used methods to alert the user of an event onthe mobile device. In addition, the mobile device is altered accordingto specific parameters associated with that group or tier.

Each specific tier would have specific parameters allowing the mobiledevice to be altered dynamically for each tier of acquaintances. Forexample, the mobile device would raise the notification to a higherlevel of notification measures if a person in the first tier is in theuser's current domain (i.e., geographical area radius) than if a personin the third tier was in the domain of the user. The same functionalitymay be applied to all modifications of the mobile device.

Example embodiments disclose procedures to provide alteringmodifications to a mobile device according to a location within a givendomain. More specifically, the mobile device utilizing temperaturemodification technology, digital scent technology, and location-basedservices technology may alter a state of the mobile device to obtain theuser's attention.

Example embodiments may utilize certain example technologies includingbut not limited to temperature modification, digital scent, and locationbased implementations to allow notifications to be customized andprovide a dynamic approach to alerting the user via his or hersmartphone. As a result, the user will be more attentive to thenotification than if the notification did not implement the addedtechnology.

Technology has progressed within the area of cooling internal componentsof a computing device due mostly to the fact that the internalprocessors have exponentially grown in speed thus generating more heat.Many various methods have been incorporated to cool internal componentsincluding air flow, which is the most common way to cool internalcomputer components. Such a cooling mechanism requires that flowing airbe carried through the heart of the computer components.

Another example may include thermal electric component coolers, whichare used as heat sinks paired with fans for more effective coolingability than merely blowing air at a hot component. Yet another examplemay include liquid cooled internal and external radiators, theseradiators use liquid to conduct the heat away from the component to aninternal fan driven radiator.

Recently, the IEEE published research regarding the heat generated by amobile device. Power dissipation levels in mobile electronics devicesare heading towards five watts and above. With this power dissipationlevel, products such as mobile phones will require active cooling toensure that the devices operate within an acceptable temperature envelopfrom both user comfort and reliability perspectives. It was noted that acentrifugal fan is implemented in certain mobile phones. Its performancewas compared in terms of aerodynamic characteristics, maximum phonesurface temperature, and allowable phone heat dissipation for variouslevels of blockage in the phone, which were simulated using perforatedplates with varying porosity. The results indicated that with minimalblockage increased power dissipation levels were 75%, but with realisticblockages this value is more likely to be in the region of 50%.

According to another example, a heat pipe is a heat transfer mechanismthat can transport large quantities of heat with a very small differencein temperature between the hot and cold interfaces. A typical heat pipeincludes a sealed hollow tube made of a thermo-conductive metal, such ascopper or aluminum. The pipe contains a relatively small quantity of a“working fluid” or coolant, such as water, ethanol or mercury with theremainder of the pipe being filled with the vapor phase of the workingfluid, all other gases being excluded. The advantage of heat pipes istheir great efficiency in transferring heat. These heat pipes areactually more “conductive” than a copper bar of equivalentcross-section.

According to another example, a Peltier cooling plate utilizes what isknown as the Peltier effect to create a heat flux between the junctionof two different types of materials. This effect is commonly used forcooling electronic components and small instruments. There are no movingparts and such a device is maintenance free. Due to the relatively lowefficiency, thermoelectric cooling is generally only used inenvironments where the solid state nature outweighs the poor efficiency.Thermoelectric junctions are generally only around 10% as efficient asthe ideal refrigerator (Carnot cycle), compared with 40% achieved byconventional compression cycle systems.

According to another example, a synthetic jet is produced by a continualflow of vortices that are formed by alternating brief ejection andsuction of air across an opening such that the net mass flux is zero. Aunique feature of these jets is that they are formed entirely from theworking fluid of the flow system in which they are deployed, which canproduce a net momentum to the flow of a system without net massinjection to the system. Synthetic jet air movers have no moving partsand are thus maintenance free. Due to the high heat transfercoefficients, high reliability but lower overall flow rates, syntheticjet air movers are usually used at the chip level and not at the systemlevel for cooling. However depending on the size and complexity of thesystems they can be used for both instances.

According to other example embodiments, a digital scent technology ispart of the interactive entertainment experience. The basic idea is toscent-enable movies, games, music, animation, or any digital media. Thistechnology is currently of interest in the computer industry, morespecifically the mobile device industry. Example embodiments utilize thedigital scent technology to aid in not only bringing attention to theuser's mobile device, but aid in providing a more immersing experiencethat will further the interests of the user.

According to example embodiments, location based services (LBS) is aninformation and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devicesthrough the mobile network utilizing the ability to make use of thegeographical position of the mobile device. LBS services can be used ina variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. LBSservices include services to identify a location of a person or object,such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereaboutsof a friend or employee. LBS services include parcel tracking andvehicle tracking services. LBS can include mobile commerce when takingthe form of notifications directed at end users based on their currentlocation including, for example, personalized weather services and evenlocation-based games.

Some examples of locating methods currently utilized in LBS includecontrol pane locating, sometimes referred to as positioning. Thisservice utilizes the radio signal delay of the closest cell-phone towersfor phones without GPS features, which can be quite slow as it uses the‘voice control’ channel. Several examples can be used to find thelocation of the subscriber and are described below, for example, thesimple and standard solution is GPS-based LBS. A current mobile devicemanufacturer's “NearMe” technology is one such example. It is used tomaintain knowledge of the exact location of the mobile device. However,such LBS features can be expensive for the end-user, as they would haveto invest in a GPS-equipped handset. GPS is based on the concept oftri-lateration, a basic geometric principle that allows finding onelocation if one knows its distance from other, already known locations.

Another example used to locate a mobile device is GSM localization.Determining the location of a mobile device in relation to its cell siteis another way to find out the location of an object or a person. Thisexample relies on multi-lateration of the signal from cell sites servinga mobile phone. The geographical position of the device is found outthrough various signal tracking techniques, such as time difference ofarrival (TDOA) or enhanced observed time difference (E-OTD).

Another example is near LBS (NLBS), in which local-range technologiessuch as Bluetooth, WLAN, infrared and/or RFID/Near field communicationtechnologies are used to match devices to nearby services. Thisapplication allows a person to access information based on theirsurroundings, especially suitable for use inside closed premises, andrestricted areas. Another alternative is an operator and GPS-independentlocation service based on access into the deep level of the network.This solution enables accurate and quick determination of geographicalcoordinates of mobile phone numbers by providing operator-independentlocation data, which also works also for handsets that are notGPS-enabled.

The example embodiments of the current invention utilize LBS and LBAtechnologies in addition to other technical areas allowinglocation-based advertisements that are not only presented to the user ofthe mobile device at an ideal time, but which also allows the advertiserto “seize” the user's attention unlike before.

FIG. 1 depicts a network diagram of how the user application operateswith relation to the cellular network and the Internet according toexample embodiments. Referring to FIG. 1, the network allows a userutilizing a client machine 103 to access the current application to bedownloaded from the server 104 or in a format that currently resides onthe client's machine 103. The client machine 103 may be any of a mobilelaptop device 106, a personal desktop computer 108, or a cellular device110. The client machine 103 is connected to the Internet 102.

For the purposes of this disclosure, it is assumed that the applicationresides on the server 104. The user of the application will be accessingthe client machine 103, and connecting to a remote machine 105. Theremote machine 105 can be accessed via any of a mobile laptop device112, a personal desktop computer 114, or a cellular device 116. Theremote machine 105 is connected to the Internet 102. If the client is ona cellular device 110/116, the server 104 can be accessed via theInternet 102, or the cellular network 118. It should be noted that othertypes of devices, in addition to devices 103 and 105, might be used withthe present invention. For example, a PDA, an MP3 player, a gamingdevice, a computing device, tablet computing device and smartphone, suchas a hand held device or home based system may also be used to transmitand receive information associated with the user application.

The user will interface through a GUI that is accessed via one or moreof the devices 103 (hereafter “mobile device 103”). In addition to theGUI located at the client's location, the application will communicatewith functionality located on the server 104, for example,speech-to-text functionality, and the voice stress analysisfunctionality, through either the Internet 102, or the cellular network118.

The user may configure the application preferably on a desktop computer,but may also configure the application on a mobile device that isInternet capable. It is necessary for the user to configure the groupsof acquaintances for the application. The application utilizesacquaintances through social network applications subscribed to by theuser. For example, in social networking sites, such as a Facebook®application, certain procedures are exposed in the published API givingthe ability to examine all of the comments of users that are friends ofa user on the Facebook application. The following are some of themethods within the Facebook API allowing this functionality:friends.get, returns the identifiers for the current user's Facebookfriends, stream.getComments, returns all comments associated with a postin a user's stream, users.getInfo, returns a wide array of user-specificinformation for each user identifier passed, limited by the view of thecurrent user, comments.add, adds a comment on behalf of a user.

Calls with a session secret may only act on behalf of the session user.Using these APIs and other published features, the user's friends areavailable for use by the current application. The user may select thefriends and sort them into groups or tiers. These groups of people eachcause different modifications to the user's mobile device.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example GUI of a user acquaintance applicationaccording to example embodiments of the present invention. Referring toFIG. 2, on the left, the user's acquaintances (3) are listed, along witha picture and a name of each individual. The acquaintances profileinformation would have been obtained through published APIs of socialnetworking applications. With each acquaintance, a ‘combo box’ componentis illustrated on the right that includes various options available foreach user 204, 206 and 208. In the list for each of the combo boxcomponents are the groups defined by the application.

FIG. 3 illustrates another example GUI of a user acquaintanceapplication according to example embodiments of the present invention.In FIG. 3, a GUI illustrates the user accessing the second listelement's combo box component 210. As can be seen, there are threegroups (tiers) of acquaintances that are available for selection. Theuser would go through each of the listed acquaintances selecting theproper groups to assign to each of the respective acquaintances based onthe user's preferences. Once the configurations of all of the user'sacquaintances are placed into their respective groups or tiers, theapplication can then perform the correct action according to the user'sacquaintances. In another embodiment of the current disclosure, theapplication groups the user's acquaintances automatically, determiningthe groups according to the previous interactions of the user with eachindividual acquaintance.

The application utilizes location based services (LBS) to alert theapplication that a mobile device has entered the domain of anacquaintance. LBS will associate the application with the device'sgeographic location by tracking the user's location coordinates andstoring that information in memory for comparison to other locationsauthorized by the application. The mobile device combines the LBSfunctionality with mapping features on the device. In order for the LBSto be active on the mobile device, location services must also be activeon the mobile device. This allows the mobile device 103 to synchronizewith location satellites which provide location data from thegeolocation service. This service cannot be turned on remotely, but onlyby the user of the mobile device 103.

Some of the procedures available to query location sources are includedin table 402 of FIG. 4. For example, getSupportedLocationSources( ),this procedure returns an integer mask that represents the locationsources that the device supports. Another procedure includesisLocationSourceSupported(int mode), this procedure returns a value oftrue if the source you specify is supported on the device. Anotherprocedure includes getAvailableLocationSources( ), this procedurereturns an integer mask that represents the location sources that thedevice supports. A location source is available if it is supported andenabled for use. Another procedure includesisLocationSourceAvailable(int mode), this procedure returns a value oftrue if the mode you specify is available to provide locationinformation.

In the above examples of FIG. 4, certain procedures listed are utilizedto obtain the location sources for the mobile device. These sources arethen used, in addition to GPS modes to query the location of the mobiledevice. The location of all of the mobile devices in the user's grouplist are maintained by the application, therefore the application willbe aware of when the user enters the domain of a mobile device in theuser's group list. The acquaintances' locations may be updated on aninterval configured by the application. The default update is set to 5minutes, but is configurable by the user (not depicted).

The mobile device 103 of the user of the current application isconstantly aware of the location of the mobile device 103 assuming thatthe user has turned on location services. When the mobile device comesnear the location of one of the user's acquaintances, the application isaware of the interaction as it is also tracking the location of theuser's acquaintances. The user's domain or a predefine distance betweenthe acquaintance and the user is configurable by the user of theapplication. The default setting is 20 meters but is configurable by theuser of the application (not depicted). The domain can be set as low as5 meters which is the minimal precision of mobile devices in general.

The user application may alter or modify the present status or currentoperating state of the user's mobile device 103 when the user and theacquaintance are identified by the application as having ‘come incontact.’ This may trigger an action that notifies the user of therecent action identified by the application (i.e., the user has entereda distance less than the predetermined distance assigned to theapplication parameters).

One of the modifications to the current operating state of the mobiledevice may be the emitting of a scent from the mobile device via one ormore scent cards which are installed in the mobile device. Utilizingdigital scent technology, the application of the current inventionalters the current scent emitting from the mobile device, which islikely no scent at all. In one example, the digital scent cartridges areavailable that the user and may be inserted into the mobile device via auser initiated action. Heat generated from the mobile phone's battery orprocessor(s) may be used as a source of heat to release the scentsthrough a vent in the mobile device. The action taken to release thescent may be controlled by commands transmitted to the mobile device viathe application.

The user can assign a specific scent by configuring the scent from thescent cartridge in the mobile device. A different scent can beassociated with each of the different levels of groups in the user'sacquaintance list. For example, a flower scent can be associated withthe user's first tier of acquaintances, the user's family. A secondscent, perhaps a perfume scent can be associated with the user's secondtier of acquaintances, and a third scent, a pine or forest scent, can beassociated with the user's third tier of acquaintances.

In another example embodiment of the present invention, an initialrelease of the scent is emitted from the mobile device when the userenters the domain of an acquaintance. As the user moves closer to theacquaintance, the mobile device is instructed to make the intensity ofthe scent stronger. As the user moves further away from theacquaintance, the intensity of the scent is decreased. Such increasesand decreases in the scent intensity may be made by increasing theamount of heat or decreasing the amount of heat applied to the scentcartridge in the mobile device 103.

The application may also alter the temperature of the mobile device whenthe user enters the domain of an acquaintance who is in the user'sgroup(s). Utilizing heat generated from the battery of the mobile device103, the application instructs the mobile device to become warmer, orutilizing cooling technology such as radiator fans or cooling plates,the application of the current can instruct the mobile device 103 tocool down according to the instructions from the application. The usercan determine a specific temperature change by configuring theapplication manually and saving the preferred settings in memory. Adifferent temperature change can be associated with each of thedifferent levels of groups in the user's acquaintance list(s).

For example, a warming of the mobile device can be associated with theuser's first and second tiers of acquaintances, and a cooling of themobile device can be associated with the user's third tier ofacquaintances. In another example, an initial temperature change occursin the mobile device when the user enters a geographical domain of anacquaintance. As the user moves closer to the acquaintance, the mobiledevice is instructed to further alter the temperature change byincreasing the temperature. As the user moves further away from theacquaintance the temperature change may decrease the temperature.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example flow diagram of a mobile devicemodification determination procedure according to example embodiments ofthe present invention. Referring to FIG. 5, in the flow of operationsrepresent an example of a user entering an acquaintance's domain. Inoperation, the user enters the domain of an acquaintance at operation400. This occurs when the user moves within the predetermined distancesassociated with a domain radius or diameter that the user has configuredfor the acquaintances in the application. The application determines thelevel or tier that the acquaintance belongs to at operation 410. A firstcheck is made to determine if the device is previously modified fromanother acquaintance 420. If the device is previously modified, then theprocess ends 460.

The application may limit the number of modifications to a mobile deviceat one time. For example, it does not make sense to heat up a mobiledevice and cool it at the same time. Nor does it make sense to emit ascent of a flower and a coffee bean at the same time. If the device isnot previously modified, then the application determines themodifications that are desired at operation 440. The desiredmodifications may be based on a list of associations that have beenselected by the user and stored in memory associated with theapplication. A check is made to determine if the mobile device 103 iscapable of being modified according to the desired modifications 440. Ifthe device is not capable of being altered, the process ends 460. Forexample, if the modification calls for a particular scent that is notinstalled in the user's mobile device then the modification will not bepossible. However, if the device is capable of being modified then thedevice is modified according to the parameters set in the application450, and the process ends 460.

In another example, the mobile device is capable of being modifiedmultiple times. For instance, when more than one acquaintance isencountered within the user's domain, the mobile device is instructed tobe modified with the most recently encountered acquaintance, and theprevious modifications are disabled. In another example, a user's mobiledevice is modified following a voicemail from one of the acquaintanceson the group list or from any acquaintance. When a voicemail iscurrently received on a mobile device, the device notifies the user byplaying a sound bite, vibrating, message notification, or altering avisual aspect. In addition to the above notifications, the applicationperforms actions similar to the user and an acquaintance coming neareach other.

For example, if an acquaintance called the user of the mobile device 103and left a voicemail, the application would determine if the mobiledevice 103 was previously modified. If not, then the application woulddetermine the modification parameters for that acquaintance. If themobile device 103 was capable of being modified in the manner respectiveof the modification parameters then the mobile device 103 will bemodified.

In another example, the temperature of the mobile device 103 indicatesthe tone, or urgency of the voicemail left on the user's mobile device103. The more urgent the message or the higher the tone of the message,the device becomes warmer. Applications that convert speech data to textare generally available in the market today. One example is Google Voicewhich converts voicemails left on a user's mobile device. Using such aspeech to data converter, the voicemails are transcribed. These messagesare parsed and compared to a group of words that may indicate a moreurgent message. For example, the following list of words and phrasesindicate urgency: quick, now, when you get this, as soon as possible,urgent, immediate, top-priority, vital, hurry, imperative, important,and serious.

If these words or synonyms are encountered in a voicemail left by anacquaintance in the user's group, it may indicate urgency, but notnecessarily. There is more validation to occur prior to determining theurgency of the message. In addition to analyzing the voicemail formatching words, other speech analysis software applications are utilizedto ascertain if the speaker in the voicemail is indeed leaving an urgentmessage.

Applications, such as the open source computerized voice stress analysistool called ‘LiarLiar’ are used to detect stress in the speakers messageas well as software applications to perform audio analysis using thediscrete wavelet transform method. The frequency or pitch is alsoanalyzed in these software applications. The combination of the wordsencountered in the message, and the speech analysis is used to determinethe urgency of the message. The higher the urgency, the more temperaturemodification is applied to the mobile device 103.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example method of operation according to anexample embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 6, themethod may include detecting a presence of a mobile station in apredefined domain area identified by an application, the predefineddomain area being associated with at least one acquaintance, atoperation 602. The acquaintance may be the center of the predefineddomain area and the mobile station's location may be determined to bewithin a radius of the area defined by the location of the acquaintance.The method may also include performing a modification to a current stateof the mobile station based on a level associated with the at least oneacquaintance, at operation 604. The level of the acquaintance may bedetermined ahead of time based on user defined preferences.

The operations of a method or algorithm described in connection with theembodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in acomputer program executed by a processor, or in a combination of thetwo. A computer program may be embodied on a computer readable medium,such as a storage medium. For example, a computer program may reside inrandom access memory (“RAM”), flash memory, read-only memory (“ROM”),erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (“EEPROM”), registers, hard disk, aremovable disk, a compact disk read-only memory (“CD-ROM”), or any otherform of storage medium known in the art.

An exemplary storage medium may be coupled to the processor such thatthe processor may read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anapplication specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”). In the alternative,the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components.For example FIG. 7 illustrates an example network element 700, which mayrepresent any of the above-described network components of the otherfigures.

As illustrated in FIG. 7, a memory 710 and a processor 720 may bediscrete components of the network entity 700 that are used to executean application or set of operations. The application may be coded insoftware in a computer language understood by the processor 720, andstored in a computer readable medium, such as, the memory 710.Furthermore, a software module 730 may be another discrete entity thatis part of the network entity 700, and which contains softwareinstructions that may be executed by the processor 720. In addition tothe above noted components of the network entity 700, the network entity700 may also have a transmitter and receiver pair configured to receiveand transmit communication signals (not shown).

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed, it is to be understood that the embodiments described areillustrative only and the scope of the invention is to be defined solelyby the appended claims when considered with a full range of equivalentsand modifications (e.g., protocols, hardware devices, software platformsetc.) thereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: determining that anacquaintance of a user is within a predetermined distance of a mobilestation of the user, the acquaintance being designated by an applicationon the mobile station; and modifying a state of the mobile stationdifferently based on which relationship type is indicated by theapplication, from among a plurality of relationship types, between theuser of the mobile station and the acquaintance, wherein the modifyingcomprises at least one of a change in audio and a change in video of themobile station.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting apresence of the mobile station in a predefined area associated with theacquaintance, wherein the presence of the mobile station is detected asbeing in the predefined area when the mobile station enters a predefineddistance radius of a user device associated with the acquaintance. 3.The method of claim 1, wherein the modifying further comprises at leastone of a change in scent and a change in temperature of the mobilestation.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising increasing anintensity of the modification to the state of the mobile station as themobile station moves closer to a user device associated with theacquaintance.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising decreasing anintensity of the modification to the state of the mobile station as themobile station moves further from a user device associated with theacquaintance.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determiningan acquaintance level of the association between the user and theacquaintance from among a plurality of acquaintance levels included inthe application.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprising modifyingthe state of the mobile station based on a user defined modificationthat is associated with the determined acquaintance level.
 8. The methodof claim 1, wherein the relationship type between the user of the mobilestation and the acquaintance comprises a personal relationship type,from among a plurality of personal relationship types, which isdetermined from a social networking application running on the mobilestation.
 9. An apparatus, comprising: a memory configured to storeacquaintance information; and a processor configured to determine thatan acquaintance of a user is within a predetermined distance of a mobilestation of the user, the acquaintance being designated by an applicationon the mobile station, and to modify a state of the mobile stationdifferently based on which relationship type is indicated by theapplication, from among a plurality of relationship types, between theuser of the mobile station and the acquaintance, wherein the modifyingcomprises at least one of a change in audio and a change in video of themobile station.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor isfurther configured to detect a presence of the mobile station in apredefined area associated with the acquaintance, wherein the presenceof the mobile station is detected as being in the predefined area whenthe mobile station enters a predefined distance radius of a user deviceassociated with the acquaintance.
 11. The apparatus of claim 9, whereinthe modifying further comprises at least one of a change in scent and achange in temperature of the mobile station.
 12. The apparatus of claim9, wherein the processor is further configured to increase an intensityof the modification to the state of the mobile station as the mobilestation moves closer to a user device associated with the acquaintance.13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to decrease an intensity of the modification to the state ofthe mobile station as the mobile station moves further from a userdevice associated with the acquaintance.
 14. The apparatus of claim 9,wherein the processor is further configured to determine an acquaintancelevel of the association between the user and the ene acquaintance fromamong a plurality of acquaintance levels included in the application.15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to perform the modification to the state of the mobilestation based on a user defined modification that is associated with thedetermined acquaintance level.
 16. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium configured to store instructions that when executed causea processor to perform a method comprising: determining that anacquaintance of a user is within a predetermined distance of a mobilestation of the user, the acquaintance being designated by an applicationon the mobile station; and modifying a state of the mobile stationdifferently based on which relationship type is indicated by theapplication, from among a plurality of relationship types, between theuser of the mobile station and the acquaintance, wherein the modifyingcomprises at least one of a change in audio and a change in video of themobile station.
 17. The non-transitory computer readable storage mediumof claim 16, wherein the processor is further configured to performdetecting a presence of a mobile station in a predefined area associatedwith the acquaintance, wherein the presence of the mobile station isdetected as being in the predefined area when the mobile station entersa predefined distance radius of a user device associated with theacquaintance.
 18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 16, wherein the modifying further comprises at least one of achange in scent and a change in temperature of the mobile station. 19.The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, whereinthe processor is further configured to perform increasing an intensityof the modification to the state of the mobile station as the mobilestation moves closer to a user device associated with the acquaintance.20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16,wherein the processor is further configured to perform decreasing anintensity of the modification to the state of the mobile station as themobile station moves further from a user device associated with theacquaintance.
 21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 16, wherein the processor is further configured to perform atleast one of: determining an acquaintance level of the associationbetween the user and the acquaintance from among a plurality ofacquaintance levels included in the application; and modifying the stateof the mobile station based on a user defined modification that isassociated with the determined acquaintance level.